Staff Presentations

Spring 1997: Told by Those Who Saw These Things - Oral History and Evangelism in the Archives

From the mid-1970s to the 1990s, the staff of the Archives conducted hundreds of oral history interviews with Christian workers, pastors, and missionaries. This presentation highlights a few selections from this oral history program, as well as explores the ways in which oral history interviews can offer new life and understandings to the study of Christian missions and evangelism.

Fall 1997: Omer of Manna - Using Oral History to Document the 1995 Wheaton College Revival

In March of 1995, Wheaton experienced three nights of spiritual renewal, confession, and praise that has since come to be known as the 1995 Wheaton College Revival. During the days and weeks after this event, the Archives conducted more than fifty oral history interviews with students, staff, and faculty. This presentation describes the origins of this project and explores the value of oral history interviews to the archival record. 

Spring 1998: Make This the Best Year of Our Lives - Scenes of Christian Ministry from 1898

Reflection on Christian ministry in 1898, highlighting key figures, events, and missionary efforts from the Evangelism & Mission Archives. Through letters, photos, and archival records, the presentation explore how believers of that time balanced personal struggles, cultural challenges, and historical change with a deep hope in God.

Spring 1999: When Did We See You a Stranger - City Rescue Missions in America

Presentation highlighting the history and impact of rescue missions in America, including Jerry McAuley’s Water Street Mission, William Borden, and Mel Trotter. Drawing from archival letters, photos, and testimonies, it portrays how these ministries provided both physical help and spiritual hope to society’s most vulnerable, embodying the call of Matthew 25 to serve “the least of these."

2002: Among All the Thousands of Pieces of the Human Mosaic

Donald McGavran was a missionary from a family of missionaries. After thirty years in India, he returned to the United States and from his searching mind and varied experience created the church growth theory which has so effected Christian discipleship in the last half of the twentieth century. Drawing on McGavran's notes, photos, audio tapes and videos, this presentation will tell his story, including the intriguing interest of his later years.

2003: Courage in the Life of John Perkins

John Perkins' story reveals an everyday quality of courage which emerges from a life of faith when a person cares little for their own safety or reputation. In 1960 Perkins returned from California to Mississippi where he developed a blending of evangelistic outreach, community development, and civil rights involvement. Based primarily on an oral history with Perkins, this presentation features real audio excerpts and accompanying transcripts from that interview.

2004: Sitting Down at the Feast of the Kingdom of God

Church historian Kenneth Scott Latourette called the years 1792 to 1914 "the Great Century" in the history of the expansion of Christianity. Those were the years that marked the beginning of a revitalized effort from Christians of Europe and then North America to preach the Gospel and plant churches in other parts of the world. In the later 20th and now the 21th centuries, the seeds sown by these early missionaries have grown into thriving Christian communities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Not only in numbers, but in theology, worship, and evangelism, the Southern churches will be a major, probably the dominant influence in the next era of Christian history. This talk will center on documents from the EMA Archives that help tell the story of these great events through the lives of individuals from North America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

2006: That Was the Time I Got Converted - Born Again Tales from the Archives

“Unless a man be born again, “ Jesus said to Nicodemus, “he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” And Nicodemus, good man and teacher that he was, was astonished. Since the birth of the church, people have told stories both common and astonishing about how they have been converted, washed in the Blood, redeemed, transformed, made new, brought to surrender all. This talk highlighted samples of the many personal account of conversion experiences to be found in the BGC Archives.

2009: I Learned to Look Straight At Them - The Apprenticeship of Billy Graham

Exploration of the education and early ministry of evangelist Billy Graham, drawn from the collections of the Evangelism & Mission Archives. Using photographs, reports, and testimonies, it highlights Graham's unique preaching style, his passionate call for conversion, and the cultural impact of his ministry in mid 20th-century America .

Fall 1998: Wheaton College Faces the Millennium - The Decade of the 1890s

A survey of Wheaton College in the last decade of the 19th century, including the presidency of Charles Blanchard, campus buildings and spaces, faculty, academics, and student life. 

Spring 1999: In Loco Parentis - A Look at Campus Housing

A review of student housing at Wheaton College from the 1860s to the 1940s, covering both on-campus and off-campus residences. The presentation also includes photographs of old student housing, as well as extensive indexes of housing timelines and other data.

2004: Abolitionist Career of Jonathan Blanchard

As with many in America, Jonathan Blanchard was impacted by the social ills and tensions of our young country. Before becoming president of Wheaton College, Jonathan Blanchard had been an ardent abolitionist. He had attended the abolitionist stronghold, Lane Seminary, in Cincinnati, Ohio and he put his life at risk while lecturing widely against slavery as one of Theodore Dwight Weld's "Seventy Disciples". When Blanchard was asked to assume the leadership of the floundering Wesleyan Methodist's Illinois Institute they asked that he uphold their commitment to abolitionism. 

2000: Seeking All Generations: The Life and Ministry of Louis H. Evans, Sr.

Born in 1897, Evans' ministry spanned decades. Serving as a  Presbyterian minister, Evans led congregations in North Dakota, California, and Pennsylvania. His most famous pastorate was the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, which became the largest church in the denomination. But his influence extended outside his congregations. He was a founder and president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes; one of Life magazine’s "America's Twelve Outstanding Religious Leaders" and on Newsweek’s list of the "Ten Greatest Protestant Preachers."

2001: Without Restraint: Kenneth Landon's Life as Missionary and Statesman

Kenneth Perry Landon's life of service in ministry and government, though often overshadowed by his wife, Margaret Landon's success as author of Anna and the King of Siam, displays perseverance and unrestrained energy in serving the Lord, in various callings and in whatever circumstance, to his fullest capacity.

2002: So I Send You - Margaret Clarkson's Life of Triumphant Praise

Margaret Clarkson was born, reared, and educated in Toronto, Canada. As an adult she taught elementary school for 38 years. A gifted writer and hymnist, Clarkson wrote and published 17 books and hundreds of poems, songs, and hymns. She is the author of "We Come, O Christ, to Thee"; "Our God is Sovereign Still"; and, the missionary hymn, "So Send I You." In 1992 she was named a Fellow by the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. 

2003: The Ground Mourns - Malcolm Muggeridge and the Ukraine Famine

The British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge was reared in a Labour Party home that viewed the Soviet Union as a utopia worth replicating. However, as the Moscow correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, Muggeridge shockingly described the horrors of the genocide promulgated in the Ukraine during the 1930s. While other reporters enjoyed the lavishness of Soviet "hospitality" on tour trains, Muggeridge got off the train and saw the realities of the supposed Soviet utopia.